Much Madness Is Divinest Sense

Wow— I haven't posted here since we came to Florida. Quick update (though most of the LJ people who care about this crap will have read the blog):

-We got to Florida on the 7th of July. We've been hanging out with my awesome grandma a lot, and sleeping in the (rent-free!) extra apartment she owns next door to her house. Our cats are the only ones who are not thrilled with the temporary relocation.

-We went to Sanibel Island to celebrate Adam's 27th birthday. The obligatory "you're almost 30!" jokes were performed, and much time was spent on the beach. Additionally, Adam received 3 bottles of wine (for free! Thanks, PNN!) and a bumper sticker he's wanted for a long time.

-We're kind of broke again, since I haven't worked in about a month now. We're being extra tightwad-ish, but still, living off your savings is a pain in the butt. But that's okay, because...

-We're going to seminary! The financial aid wasn't fabulous (we'll be taking out almost $20,000/year in loans), but I'm not worried, because, unlike my phantom Masters in Journalism, Adam's ordination will actually PAY OFF. (Plus, those Northwestern folks wanted me to pay $60,000/year, and General only wants $60,000 for the entire three-year program.)

-So, yeah, we're moving to New York City. Huzzah!

Stolen from Laura. Because I don't post about my life anymore.

( Meme! )

Uh, so, we might be moving to Berkeley instead?

Adam and I had to meet with the Bishop, since he has to approve Adam's seminary plans and stuff. And so Adam tells him that he applied to General Theological in NYC and Virginia Theological Seminary outside of DC, he's like, "Well, that's cool with me, but have you considered Bexley Hall?"

And at that point I politely explained (and I think I was very restrained and mature about this) that if I don't get out of Ohio I am likely to KILL A BITCH.

So he's like, "Okaaaaay... how about CDSP?" And Adam's like, "We liked the Berkeley school, but their application deadline was in, like, April or something."

And the Bish is all like, "Oh, well, I'm on the Board of Directors, so I'll just call them up and we'll see about you going there."

So...lots of options. Behind Door Number One, we have New York— it's familiar, it's close to a lot of my friends, and there'll be a done of newspaper and magazine jobs there. Behind Door Number Two: D.C., where I know several people and where I can find some political writing jobs. And Door Number Three is now California, which sounds like a whole lot of fun, and is definitely a place where we could have all sorts of adventures.

All of those places seem like good places to live. All of those places seem like places where I could find a job, and a good grad school program after Adam is all squared away. And all of those places would be suitable places for Adam to serve his diaconate, and maybe get his first rector position, and thus would be fabulous places for us to have a baby in nine or ten years, should we become stuck in the web that is the local diocese system for that long.

Any door is fine with me. I just want to choose the damn door already. I'm tired of things being so up in the air like this.

A horse stepped on my foot last night, and it may or may not be broken. Well, the foot, not the horse. It probably isn't, though— it's just sore and bruised and gross-looking.

But other than that, Adam's graduation party was awesome.

I'm so annoyed that this woman thinks Carrie Prejean was standing up for any sort of Christian principle. Geez, lady— READ THE BIBLE. JESUS DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT WHO YOU LOVE. I hate Perez Hilton, too, but that doesn't make that bitch a saint.

For other people, the hardest part of faith is church attendance, or true belief, or a particular theological issue. For me, it's sharing the title of "Christian" with intolerant, unkind people who think hatred is the work of God.

And now for an un-Christian moment: STUPID STUPID STUPID.

So, hilariously enough, I actually watched the movie version of that horrible vampire book.

...and surprisingly enough, it wasn't as bad as the novel.

For one thing, the movie version eradicates the original author's painful abuse of adjectives (e.g., "sparkling," "dazzling," and "beautiful," all of which are used approximately 4,687,597 times EACH in the novel), and whomever wrote the script seemed to at least attempt to naturalize and smooth over some of the clunky dialogue. The movie does seem to be appropriately embarrassed by the blatant sexism that appeared in the book, at least enough to try and tone it down— e.g., the creepy way that Bella cooks and cleans for her daddy seems to be largely absent, Bella's absurd clumsiness is made into a more natural teenage awkwardness, and a few of the female characters seem to have been changed in order to help them appear at least vaguely skilled/interesting. They even managed to make a kind of sense out of the silly pseudo-gang-rape-attempt scene; at least in the movie, the random threatening guys are slobbering drunk, so it doesn't seem to come out of left field as much when they try to make it with the mousy high school girl they just glimpsed in the parking lot. The message is a little less "guys will try and rape you if you walk places without a male escort to protect you" and a little more "people can be violent when they drink too much beer." So there's that.

Of course, the grossness of Edward's stalkerishness is still there ("I like to watch you sleep"), and Bella is still clingy and whiny and needy ("Don't ever leave me— don't even talk about it"), and Edward is still trying to channel Lord Byron and failing utterly, and the stupid thing still ends at the Prom, which is as lame and stupid as it gets. But I gleaned a passibly entertaining two hours from the experience, which is more than I can say for the horrific several days I spent trying to force myself to keep my eyes on the pages of the novel version.

So I say: rent the damn thing, pick up a few six-packs of wine coolers at the store, get a few friends together, and enjoy.

Oh, come now— this isn't really a recipe.

EDIT: Also, neither is this.

I love irony.

EDIT: It just keeps getting better. This recipe site is AWESOME.

The best part of marriage is this:

When you have an embarrassing (yet relatively minor) personal health issue, your spouse will not only drive to the drug store to pick up some medication— he'll also be absolutely unfazed by the grossness of said health issue. In fact, he'll dry your tears and tell you that it's perfectly normal and that it's happened to him and he'll help you cheer up faster than you thought possible.

I love my husband.

My initial reaction is, of course, yes, at least on the first count, not the second. I don't believe in "love at first sight"; when I first saw the love of my life, I didn't fall for him instantly, even though there was definitely some major ATTRACTION when we first saw one another. I actually don't think love has anything to do with sight, and certainly isn't connected to first impressions. I do, however, believe in "true love"— that is, I believe that you can live happily and lovingly with someone for the rest of your life. However, I don't think everyone has just ONE "soulmate"— I think that, depending on your personality, you can have between one and a million true loves.

For example, if you're a particularly kind and loving person, there could be many, many people with whom you could build a life out there. There may even be multiple people with whom you could build lives AT THE SAME TIME. For me, however, there may actually only be a couple of people I could ever love, because I am a hateful person who despises most of the people on the planet.

Of course, while I only have one romantic soulmate, I have several platonic soulmates: Claire, Leora, Rita, Yas, Lau, Maya, and several other sweet, kindly people whom I do truly love. And in a sense, my mom is my soulmate, too, since she understands me so much better than most people do.

When it comes down to it, though, I only have one "life partner" type of soulmate— and he's my husband. I've always been a very monogamous person, mostly because I a) hate everyone, and b) generally prefer keeping my family small. Here's the largest my little family will ever get: Adam + me + one child + two cats (maybe a small dog). That's it— any more people, and I'll start to get pissed off. It's just how I am— I don't like large groups of people, and I prefer one-on-one situations to almost anything else.

Three of my four wisdom teeth are now gone. Well, as Adam just pointed out, they're not GONE— they're actually lying on the kitchen table. That's right: my dentist let me keep my wisdom teeth. Even though one of them is in little tiny pieces, it's still kind of cool to see.

In other news, Vicoden is a son of a bitch.

I hate nights when Adam has to work. BOR-ING. I can't even eat any comfort food this evening, because I gave up chocolate for Lent, and somehow I forgot that tonight was the series premiere of ANTM and totally missed out. BLAH.

In other news, I think my mother-in-law subconsciously wants me to have a baby. She's seems convinced that we're going to drop a big B-bomb on her every time we speak to her. Like, right after we got married, I was talking with her about what I was going to do with my wedding dress, and I mentioned that I was thinking of making it into a christening gown, and her eyes got all big and she clutched my arm and said, "You're not PREGNANT, are you?"

And then Adam says that the other day, he called her a couple times to ask her for a recipe but she wasn't there. Later on, she called him back and was like, "What did you want to talk to me about?" and he was all, "Could you gimme your recipe for angel food cake?" and she was all, "Oh, I thought you were going to tell me that you're having a baby."

MY mother, on the other hand, is trying a different tactic: repeatedly telling me I'd make a terrible mother. Gee, thanks, ma.

I for one am totally in support of separating the idea of marriage from the idea of having kids. I mean, I WANT to have them (well, ONE), but much later on, and I feel like every other person I meet is all up in my face with, "Are you having kids?" and "Why haven't you had kids?" and "I dunno if you should have kids." GEEZ, PEOPLE. Can we give it a rest? I've only been married...what, not even six months?

BAH.

Oh. My. Gosh. Erin May gave me the most exciting news ever.

America's Next Top Model is casting girls SHORTER THAN 5'7''. IT'S AN ENTIRE "SHORT" SEASON.

I love that show. I weigh 96 lbs. I am 5'2''. There is a Pittsburgh casting on March 6th.

HOW HILARIOUS WOULD THIS BE? Discuss.

So I have to get to work and am sort of in a hurry, or else I would do this myself....but can some of you folks deal with this blog post, entitled "Does Pornography Cause Rape"? It's not particularly well written or anything— it's just annoyingly silly and poorly thought out. I think that some of you would be pretty good at helping this woman to see the errors in her logic, and while I will comment at a later date, I thought one or two of you out there might be interested in verbally beating the crap out of her.

Everyone? I need your help.

I'm writing this essay for Barron's College Guide, and in the essay I need a list of prominent Vassar grads to appear. I made a list, and then Jeff Kosmacher (the director of media relations at Vassar) added some and deleted some, but I'm not sure I agree with all the deletions/additions he made. Therefore, I'm asking for your opinion!

Take a look at the list below the lj cut. This is the complete list of grads I want to include and grads Jeff wants to include. Then comment with your reflections. Here are some things to think about:

Vassar students/alums: which alums impressed you? Which didn't? Did any make you proud or glad to have attended Vassar? Which alums had you known about before attending Vassar? Which do you wish you had known about? Can you think of any others you'd add to the list?

Persons not affiliated with Vassar: are you impressed by any of the alums? Are you repulsed or turned off by any of them? If you were going college shopping, which names would impress you the most?

I know that big-name alums aren't a reason to go to a college, but as I'm writing this essay to promote Vassar, I've got to think about this kind of stuff.

Thanks for reading!

(PS: I don't have everyone's class year yet, so that's not completely accurate.)( The List )

I am very unhappy, and it's beginning to affect my health.

I have been working forty hours a week at an accounting firm. Yes, you heard me correctly, and no, I do not have any clue what I'm doing. I have a major writing deadline in a week and I am not prepared. Adam is in pain, and has not slept or done homework at all this week. He may have to quit his job, which would leave us to survive on $8/hour and without health insurance. Due to his car accident last week, we have no vehicle whatsoever.

I am tired, and it's STILL snowing, and somehow the only channel that is coming in clearly on my TV is currently showing "The Biggest Loser: Families."

It's that time of year again, folks. Let's hope that, this time around, it doesn't end with me being committed.

Adam had a car accident today and spent the day in the ER.

...I never thought I'd be watching the Obama inauguration while my husband's head is stitched up beside me.

So I did NOT apply for the Rose grant.

And before y'all yell at me, it's because I'm ashamed not to have published any poetry this year. There— I said it. I feel like a failure for having published nothing creative since, well, high school. And I'm sure they're going to want to pick someone who has had their work exhibited in some sort of public way this year. Half of the questions on the application form I would have had to leave completely blank, so I'm sure that's an indication that it wasn't the best idea for me to apply.

I think perhaps if I come to the inevitable conclusion that I am not a spectacular poet (at least compared with a lot of published poets today) then I can sort of free myself from the pressing need to prove myself by publishing or winning contests and just sort of write poems because I enjoy writing them. That's not to say that I'm not good— I am good, pretty durn good, but I'm not great, and in this industry, at this time in our history, you have to be dazzling to be noticed. I'm not dazzling— they may call me the Emily Dickinson of Vassar, but it's more because my poems resemble Dickinson's life (quiet, simple, shy) than her work. (Well, and also I'm eccentric and keep to myself, so that's probably the real reason for the moniker. If I started wearing only white and fell in love with a woman then the comparison would truly be complete.)

But I'm still working on stuff (my sestinas are all-consuming!) and I did just send off another round of poems to journals and stuff, so we'll see how it goes.

Please don't be mad at me, guys. I'm just tired of being reminded that I'll never be great. I need a break from throwing myself into the soul-crushing fray of the publishing world, and I think a couple months of writing instead of sending poems out will make me feel better. And this way, when I get to NYC, I can have some fresh material for editors to reject and rip apart.